Page 37 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

KONSTANTIN

On the screen, three guards cross the south corridor, boots soft but movement coordinated, clearing each alcove in textbook formation.

In the next pane, two men in the wine cellar, white gloves and UV lights, checking bottle by bottle for residue, tampering, hairline fractures.

I count the seconds it takes each to reach the far rack and am not impressed.

The guest suites flicker. Each will empty out shortly since we don't suspect any foul play from the attendees, but the cleaning staff are being held for interview, so no one has touched a pillow.

Every inch of the estate is in play.

I page through the incident log. The digital version is cleaner than the printed one, but I like the feel of paper when a man's career is on the line.

Fourteen staff, six outside contractors, three guests of interest, and a dozen guards who would rather eat glass than admit they missed something.

The poison was subtle, a low enough dose to sicken, perhaps paralyze, but not kill.

I set the log on the desk. The leather is scored where I've gripped the edge, and the indentations form a pattern of controlled rage. Orlov watches me and taps a note on the tablet. "How's the sweep?" I ask, voice rough from the vodka and the hour.

He clicks a pen, scans his tablet. "Security is ninety percent through the main building. No anomalies so far. Staff are isolated in the garage annex. Sokolov's men are questioning by tier—kitchen, then service, then the cleaners."

"And the wine?"

"Tested every bottle in the service route," he says. "Two with residue on the cork, but it matches the cell log for last month's cleaning. Forensics confirms."

The coffee goes down like battery acid. "What about the sommelier?"

"Six years with us, backgrounded twice. No contacts out of country, no unexplained assets."

I turn to the main monitor and cycle through the service hallway tapes.

The security cameras catch everything—the shift changes, the handoffs, the exact moment Ekaterina enters the kitchen and orders a reroute of the dessert cart.

The chef is visibly startled but obeys. I watch her hands—steady, unhurried, surgical in the way she selects and dismisses.

"Pause it there," I say.

Orlov stops the tape on Ekaterina's face. She is looking straight into the lens, not a smile but an acknowledgment. I don't like the confidence it projects.

"Any word on the head server?"

Orlov shakes his head with a grimace. "I've never known someone who pulled such a clean disappearing act. Feels like he had help."

I switch to the staff annex. A dozen house workers in branded shirts, lined up on folding chairs like convicts in a holding cell.

Sokolov walks the line, face unreadable, and reads names from a card.

Each nods in turn, answers in monotone, none looking up except the youngest—a slip of a girl with hair so white it glows.

Her name escapes me. I watch the sequence of her answers, the way she fidgets, the glances to the exit. Not guilt, but fear of being forgotten.

"Orlov," I say. "Get Sokolov to pull the youngest maid. Isolate her, and keep the questions soft. If she breaks, we lose her."

He nods, makes a note. "You think she's the leak?"

"No," I say. "She's the canary."

Outside the office, the hallway is alive with foot traffic—guards crossing, staff running emergency protocols, Galina in a sweater and pearls, acting like she isn't listening to every word.

I hear her heels click up to my door, pause, then retreat.

She's logging my moods, and later, she'll relay them to Zoya over tea.

I loosen my tie, then think better of it and tear it off. The silk nearly snaps, and I toss it onto the radiator, where it coils like a sleeping snake.

Orlov blinks but says nothing. "What's your read?" I ask.

He tilts his head. "Professional with a playful streak. Not a crime of passion, not a warning shot from amateurs. If the goal was to kill, they'd have dosed all the glasses."

"They wanted to make a point," I finish.

He nods, eyes narrow. "It worked."

I smile, all teeth, and let the silence extend until I see sweat pop on his hairline.

The door opens. Sokolov enters, two guards at his flanks.

He's wearing the same suit as last night, but now it fits him like a second skin.

" Pakhan ," he says, "we've finished the sweep.

Nothing out of line. The perimeter is locked, the guest list triple-checked.

No one entered or left since the last shift.

We have the servants in the annex and the chef in isolation. "

"And the guests?"

"All cleared to leave at 8:00 on the dot."

I nod, then reach for the coffee. The mug is empty, and I almost throw it but stop myself. "Run the tapes again. Every angle."

Sokolov looks at Orlov, then at me. "It's the server who escaped, isn't it?"

"Not him," I say. "Though it'd be unfortunate if we don't find him. It's the hand on his leash we care about."

Sokolov's mouth quirks, then he leaves, pulling the guards with him.

I sit in the office and watch the sunrise hit the glass towers across the river.

I imagine the men in those offices—oligarchs, politicians, police captains—waking up to the news that the house of Vetrov nearly collapsed overnight and that the Pakhan's wife survived by sheer force of habit.

I imagine the calls they will make, the alliances they will test, the debts they will try to collect.

Orlov hovers. I let him.

"Prepare a statement for the staff," I say. "No one is to speak to media or police. We handle it in-house. Anyone leaks, they're gone."

He makes another note.

"Get me a new tie, too," I add, "and tell the kitchen I want fresh eggs. Not the powdered shit they serve the guards."

Orlov hesitates. "And Zoya?"

I drum my fingers on the desk, counting out a measure of patience. "She's in her rooms?"

"Hasn't left since last night," he says. "Security confirms."

"Good," I say, though I know it isn't.

When Orlov leaves, I turn the main monitor to the live feed of the staff annex.

The young maid is crying now, Sokolov at her side, speaking not as a wolf but as a father.

I recognize the trick—he's making himself small, offering absolution before she even confesses.

I study her face, the tremor in her hands, the slow collapse of will.

This is not a house. It is a machine, and every moving part exists to serve the engine. I flex my hands, let the skin stretch over the scars.

If someone wanted to scare me, they picked the wrong target. I make a call to Alexei. The line picks up on the first ring.

"Status?" he asks.

"We're clean," I say. "But we're being watched."

A pause. "By whom?"

"That's what you're going to find out. Sokolov will deliver fresh intel soon."

He laughs, the sound bright as steel. "It's always a pleasure, cousin."

I hang up. The sun is up now, the city awake and hungry.

So am I , I think to myself as I leave the office and make for the war room.

The screens on the north wall play a slow rotation of Moscow's arteries—roads, rail, comms—while the far screen cycles the estate's internal feeds, including a thermal map of every body in the house.

Alexei arrives shortly after and takes a seat at my left, his posture perfect even at seven in the morning. Sokolov flanks him, already on his second energy drink, eyes bloodshot but lucid. Orlov is at the end, notes open, stylus clicking, never looking up unless directly addressed.

I close the door, then double-check the lock. Heavy oak, old Soviet ministry. The kind of door you could shoot through but never pick.

Alexei starts the meeting with a single tap of his phone.

He goes on to tell me the girl was the last person who spoke with the head server, who happened to vanish into thin air.

She didn't have much else to reveal. "Cousin, we have eight possible vectors for the poison," he continues.

"Sokolov thinks it's inside, I say outside.

But we both agree the estate is the weakness. "

He says "the estate" like it's a lover that cheats but never leaves. I ignore the bait.

"The house has never been breached," Sokolov grumbles.

Alexei makes a small smile. "Statistically, precedent means nothing."

"Statistically, your face would look better with a broken nose," Sokolov retorts.

I let them snarl. It's what I pay them for.

Orlov clears his throat. "We have two priorities—protect the family, and project strength to the street. The first is non-negotiable. The second is reputational. I recommend we move the boy and his mother to the Belarus property, just until the internal sweep is clean."

He means my family, the only people I love, and the ones most in danger.

I was supposed to be protecting Zoya, and I almost lost her.

Alexei leans in, voice measured. "You know it's temporary.

We keep them out of sight, say it's for ‘health reasons', and nobody needs to know.

If the girl's sister is the issue, she never sees them again. We handle her in-country."

Sokolov drums his fingers. "I don't like the optics, Pakhan . If the word gets out?—"

Alexei cuts him off. "No word will get out. Orlov's people are solid."

I look at the thermal map. Two blue dots in the east wing, moving in tandem—Zoya and Lev, walking the corridor. One more in the atrium, likely Galina. Red dots at every window and entry. I imagine the entire house on fire, the only way to guarantee a clean break.

"Moving them is a mistake," I say.

Three heads pivot in unison.

"It shows we're afraid," I add. "It says the Pakhan can't control his own territory."

"A Pakhan is not invulnerable," Orlov says quietly. "He is not supposed to be."

"Maybe not," I answer, "but he's supposed to act like it."